Hi Rick,

Cypress is rather heavy wood but as far as delamination goes, you will not have problems under normal usage.Impact resistance on rocks is a different story. This is the Achilles heel of any wood strip core. Spanish cedar, mahogany, spruce, white cedar, clear white pine, balsa, bass wood, red cadar and redwood are great species for this construction (and their bonding strength is roughly in that order). The more porous and less resinous the wood the better the adhesion. Finishing with very fine grit paper doesn't help much either. Low viscosity epoxies will certainly help (if it's too oily it won't help) Species you must be carefull with: Teak, bubinga, very resinous spanish cedar or pine and dense (few capillaries) hard wood. Some builders suggest, washing the wood with thinners to dissolve the oils in the surface layer and to draw them out. I haven't done that on large surfaces but it seems like a clever idea. The only thing I would be cautious in this regard is patchiness or local discoloration and such.

Vaclav